Four climbers summited Pingora Peak in the Cirque of the Towers on September 5 and started down the south buttress. They chose to rappel a line to the left of the main south buttress route, using two ropes tied together. Two of them had used this descent two days earlier.

They team completed the first rappel and gathered at the next anchor, consisting of slings around a boulder. As one of the climbers pulled the ropes from their first rappel, a rock came down the face and smashed into the anchor, cutting both slings around the boulder. Janette Heung, 35, had been clipped into the anchor, and she fell when it was cut. One of the other climbers also began to fall, but was able to grab a sling girth-hitched to the harness of one of his companions. The climbers, none of whom were now connected to any anchor, quickly secured themselves and each other to an older adjacent anchor. Heung fell about 400 feet to the ground.

One of the climbers used an inReach to contact search and rescue. The team built a new anchor and descended to Heung’s location. They attempted to revive her but were unsuccessful. A helicopter with a crew from Tip Top Search and Rescue arrived about one hour after the fall and continued resuscitation efforts, but Heung succumbed to her injuries.

ANALYSIS

Janette Heung was an expert alpine and ice climber, and her partners are highly experienced as well. The climbers believe that pulling the rappel rope dislodged the rock that fell. The anchor materials at their stance consisted of a recently placed double-length Dyneema sling and an older, UV-damaged loop of tubular webbing, connected by a quick-link.

This was a tragic and unusual accident, and it’s not certain that anything specific could have been done to prevent it. As general advice for such rappels, take care to position the rappel ropes to avoid potentially loose horns, flakes, or rocks on ledges, and consider backing up fixed rappel anchors during transitions from one rappel to the next. It costs little time to plug a cam into a crack and clip into it directly—this is especially important for larger groups and/or crowded stances. (Sources: Climbing partner’s report on Mountain Project, Rock and Ice magazine, and the Editors.)